


Sabine's Brothers

by LibraryMage



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Autistic Character, Brother-Sister Relationships, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 05:16:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6457357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryMage/pseuds/LibraryMage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Sabine referred to Ezra and Zeb as her brothers, plus one time each they referred to her as their sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sabine's Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> Most of these moments are meant to be set at ambiguous times, except for the first one, which is before season one, and the fifth one, which is after season two.
> 
> warnings for: minor injuries, canon-typical violence and dangerous situations, references to past death of family members, and alcohol

1.

Sabine had only lived on the  _Ghost_  for a month, but the walls of her room had already changed completely three times.  Once she’d been able to get herself to ask Hera if she could paint her room, she immediately got to work.  Today, like most days, she was in her room, staring at the walls.

“Repainting again?” a voice asked.  She turned to see Zeb standing in her doorway.

“Thinking about it,” she said.  The two of them hadn’t spoken much outside of the few jobs they’d run in the past few weeks, and Zeb had never commented on her art before.

“Why d’you keep changing it?” Zeb asked.

Sabine shrugged.

“I want to find something I like,” she said.  “But that keeps changing.  I was thinking about maybe painting home.”

“You miss it?” Zeb asked, leaning against the wall and examining the more abstract designs that currently covered the walls.

Sabine nodded.  “I wanted to go back,” she said.  “But I couldn’t.”

“If you had, we’d sure be missing out,” Zeb said.  Sabine glanced at him in surprise.  It wasn’t that she thought Zeb didn’t like her, it’s just that so far, he wasn’t exactly overt with compliments.

“I’m glad you decided to join up, kid,” he continued.

“Me too,” Sabine said.  “I kind of missed having a big brother.”

* * *

 

 

2.

“You’ve done this before, right?” Ezra asked, eyeing the needle Sabine held.

“Of course I have,” Sabine said.  “Hold still.”

Ezra tried to obey, but flinched as soon as the needle pierced the skin next to his wound.

“Hold  _still_ ,” Sabine repeated.

“I’m trying,” Ezra said, his teeth clenched together, bracing against the pain.

“Didn’t Kanan say something about there being no ‘try’?” Sabine asked.  “Maybe next time don’t get your shoulder slashed open when you know we’re nearly out of bacta.”

Ezra rolled his eyes, then jumped and yelped again as Sabine placed another stitch in his wound.

“Breathe,” Sabine said.  “Just breathe,  _vod’ika_.”

Ezra squeezed his eyes shut and breathed deeply, trying to imitate the way Kanan had shown him how to breathe while meditating.  It was a lot harder to block out distractions when they came in the form of a crewmate repeatedly sticking a needle into his skin.

“What does that word mean?” Ezra asked as Sabine placed a bandage over his stitches.

Sabine hesitated for a moment before answering, almost like she was embarrassed.

“It means ‘little brother.’”

“Oh,” Ezra said.  He couldn’t think of anything to say in response.

“Sorry,” Sabine said.  She bolted from the common area before Ezra could say anything else.

* * *

 

 

3.

“Left!” Ezra shouted.  “Go left!”

He and Zeb rounded the corner and found themselves facing a dead end.

“Don’t say it,” Ezra said.

“You’re a Jedi, aren’t you?” Zeb retorted.  “I don’t  _have_  to say it!”

The two of them turned around, bracing themselves for the coming fight.  Zeb readied his bo-rifle and Ezra raised his blaster just as the five stormtroopers who had been following them turned the corner.

Shots echoed through the alley and three of the stormtroopers fell.  Zeb glanced at Ezra, who shook his head.  Neither of them had fired the shots.

In the blink of an eye, a familiar figure in pink armor dropped into the alley and landed between Ezra, Zeb, and the stormtroopers.

“No one messes with my brothers except me,” Sabine said.

She fired twice more and the remaining stormtroopers went down.

“Come on!” she shouted, gesturing to Zeb and Ezra.  They followed her out of the alley as she led them back toward the  _Ghost._

* * *

 

 

4.

“This should buy us a couple minutes,” Sabine said, locking the door behind them.

The internal mechanisms of the door began to shift.

“Or not,” Sabine said.

Just before the door opened, Sabine and Zeb dove in opposite directions, Sabine ducking behind a small stack of crates, and Zeb pressing himself against the wall behind a support column.

From a small space between the crates, Sabine could see four stormtroopers enter the room.  Two of them approached Sabine and Zeb’s hiding spots.  Sabine knew they would see Zeb first.  She drew both her blasters and waited.  She wedged one of them into the gap between the crates and pulled the trigger twice, taking out the two stormtroopers who’d remained near the door.

The other two turned around, looking for the source of the shots.  They began firing the second they saw Zeb.

Sabine stood up and returned their fire.  She hit both stormtroopers in the back.

“Got your back,  _vod_!” she said.  “Let’s move!”

* * *

 

 

5.

Ezra steeled himself before knocking on Sabine’s door.  He almost bolted before she even opened it.

“Hey, kid,” she said.  “What’s up?”

“I need a favor,” Ezra said.  His eyes darted back and forth, looking for anyone who might overhear.  “Can we talk with the door shut?”

“Sure thing,” Sabine said.  She stepped aside and let him into her room, closing the door behind him.  “What do you need?”

He held out his hands and Sabine’s eyes widened slightly when she saw he was holding the holocron he’d retrieved on Malachor.

“Can you keep this safe?” he asked.  “I just…I don’t think I should be around it, and I thought maybe it was safer with you.”

She took the holocron from his hands without looking at it.  She was busy studying his face.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Ezra shook his head.

“It’s like that thing’s trying to get inside my head,” he told her.  “I know it doesn’t make sense but -”

“No,” Sabine said, slowly turning the holocron over in her hands.  “I get it.  Really.  I’ll keep it safe for you, no problem.”  She paused for a second before speaking again.

“Have you talked to Kanan about this?”

Ezra shook his head again.

“I can’t,” he said.  “Not yet.  It’s just…I opened it, Sabine.  And you can’t do that unless you - unless -”

He couldn’t make himself keep talking.  He stared at the floor, trying not to imagine what Sabine must be thinking right now.

Seconds later, he found himself being pulled into a hug, Sabine’s arms wrapped tight around his shoulders.

“It’s okay,” she muttered.  “It’s really okay.”

She let go and took a step back, her hands still on his shoulders, her eyes not quite locking with his.

“You should talk to Kanan,” she said.  “He’ll understand.  I know he will.  Think you can do that?”

“I don’t know,” Ezra said.  “Just…thanks.”

“Hey,” Sabine said, giving him a soft punch on the shoulder, “What are sisters for?”

* * *

 

 

+1

It had been a particularly difficult job, with Zeb and Sabine both almost getting shot more times than they wanted to think about.  They didn’t need to say a word to each other to agree to meet in Sabine’s room.

As soon as the others were out of sight, they headed to her room, their mutual mood in stark contrast with the bright colors of the walls around them.  Once the door was closed behind them, Sabine pulled away the loose wall panel that hid her secret stash of alcohol.  Hera knew about the stash.  Kanan didn’t.

Sabine slid the metal back into place and took a drink directly from the bottle.  It was that kind of a day.

They passed the bottle back and forth in silence for a while.  Eventually, Zeb was the one who broke the silence.

“What was your family like?” he asked.  “The one back on Mandalore, I mean.”

“Small,” Sabine said.  “Just my parents and my brother.  Not much to talk about, really.”

She shrugged.

“What about yours?” she asked.

“Pretty much the opposite,” Zeb said.  “I was the oldest of four.  Two brothers and a little sister.  She was a lot like you, actually.”

“How old was she?” Sabine asked.

“Nineteen,” he said.  “That’s still pretty young for us.  Still a kid.”

“I’m sorry,” Sabine said.  She knew it wasn’t enough, wasn’t helpful, but it was all she could think of to say.  She wasn’t good at this.

“It was a long time ago,” Zeb said, shutting the conversation down.

The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes.  Neither of them were particularly good at this.  There was a reason that when they were sad-drinking, they usually didn’t speak.

“Still,” Zeb said eventually.  “It’s nice having a little sister again.”

* * *

 

 

+2

Ezra, Sabine, and Zeb raced up the ramp and into the  _Ghost’s_  cargo bay.  Not because they were being followed this time, but because all three of them were still riding the adrenaline rush from their latest mission.  The three of them had had to fight their way past a dozen stormtroopers to make their escape and had somehow succeeded.

“Nice job, you three,” Hera said as they made it onto the ship.

“I can’t believe we pulled that off!” Sabine said.

“We might not have if you hadn’t been there to save Ezra’s ass,” Zeb said.  Sabine had taken out three of the stormtroopers who had boxed Ezra into a corner.

“Hey,” she said.  “Anything for my favorite little brother.”

“I’m your  _only_  little brother,” Ezra said without thinking.

The cargo bay went silent.  Everyone’s eyes were trained on Ezra.

“Why is everyone staring at me?” he asked.

“You  _did_  hear yourself just now, right?” Sabine asked.

Something clicked in Ezra’s mind and he realized exactly what he’d just said.  He slowly backed toward the ladder the led out of the cargo bay.

“I, uh -- I gotta….leave,” he said, before scrambling up the ladder.

“You ever planning to let him live that down?” Kanan asked.

“Never,” Sabine said.  “You know there’s no take-backs with this stuff.”

**Author's Note:**

> "Vod’ika" is a Mandoa'a word that I made up for this fic because there's no canon-official word for "little sibling." I combined the word "vod" which is the gender-neutral word for a sibling, and the diminutive suffix "ika."


End file.
